Wordle 1703 Hint

Hint: Per Robert Southey, what curses and young chickens always come home to dos.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: R

Another Purchase for the Upcoming Trip

I'm kind of hoping to do a number of road trips this year, including several on a motorcycle.

Which means working on a laptop.

My current laptop -- a 2018 11.6" Dell Chromebook -- isn't bad for what it is, and in fact it's more computer than I absolutely, positively must have for doing a little work on the road. 8Gb of RAM, which is nice, and it's a touchscreen that can be used as a tablet, even though I never do that. But the screen is just too small. I think I paid $45 for it, refurbished, about four years ago. In fact, I bought two of them, and one of them is still Tamara's home machine.

The HP Chromebook arriving Tuesday is newer, and has a bigger solid state drive, but has the same CPU and less RAM (4Gb), and no touchscreen. And it cost more -- $60 refurbished. But it has a 14" screen, which I consider essential. My eyes are even worse than they were four years ago, and I always thought the 11.6" was unsatisfactory.

Since I have the older Chromebook as backup, I may install Linux Mint on one of them, as I prefer that work environment. That involves opening the machine up to remove a write protect screw so I can flash the BIOS. I didn't want to try that without a second laptop available. The old Dell has the built-in "ability to run Linux apps," but it just isn't the same.

There Isn't Really a "Vaccine Market" on the Patient Side

Headline:

This Is What Destroying the Vaccine Market Looks Like

It's about the US Food and Drug Administration's "refuse to file" action on Moderna's mRNA flu shot product.

Essentially, the FDA is refusing to consider Moderna's application for approval of the shot based on its claim that Moderna's testing of the vaccine is based on insufficient or not strictly enough constructed trials.

The complaints about the decision seem to fall into two categories:

1. That the "refuse to file" action is "unusual;" and
2. That Moderna consulted with FDA when designing its trial process and therefore should be held to the standards the consultations implied were FDA-approved, rather than to some other standards.

Either of which may be true, I guess, but the part I find interesting is the idea that there's a real "market" in vaccines.

To me, the idea of a "market" implies willing individual buyers making informed decisions to purchase or not purchase a product (and to have that product injected, or otherwise introduced, into their bodies).

To the article's author, the "market" seemingly extends only to how the poor, impoverished, well-meaning pharmaceutical companies' stock values are affected by their ability or inability to ensure that government regulators, once bought, stay bought. Cry me a river, break out the world's smallest violin, etc.

The "market" for vaccines is mostly a bunch of large institutional buyers (including government entities) deciding not only which vaccines we may choose, but which vaccines some of us (children for the most part, but they tried to extend it to a whole lot of adults with COVID) must accept on the customer side, and on the seller side a bunch of large pharmaceutical companies which mostly regulate themselves through "revolving door" staffing between themselves and government agencies, and which are insulated from risk by laws shielding them from liability for damages their products inflict on patients.

The individual patient really isn't part of that "market." Even if the patient isn't a child whose parents are being told that vaccination is the law, it's just the doctor saying "time for your flu shot" and asking you to pretend with him or her that you have read, and understand, the stack of "informed consent" paperwork.

I would personally prefer to see the FDA de-funded and dis-banded, and for insurers to test medications the same way they do home appliances through Underwriters Laboratories -- with the manufacturers bearing full liability for damages caused by defective products instead of shifting those costs back onto patients via government taxation.

But if they're going to keep their rigged system, I'm not going to empathize with them when their bottom lines take hits within the context of that system.